


Gave all my heart the strength of my arms (To hold you close and safe)

by naivesilver



Series: Once upon a time there was (A king) - The Adventures of Pinocchio Remix [2]
Category: Le avventure di Pinocchio | The Adventures of Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Death, Delusions, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Gen, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, Italian Mythology & Folklore, Minor Character Death, Mother-Son Relationship, Non-Linear Narrative, Off-screen Relationship(s), Violence, but hella more unhinged than in the og story, the one where the blue fairy is decidedly less full of shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28557408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naivesilver/pseuds/naivesilver
Summary: It’s been such a long time since she last tasted pity on her tongue, she almost doesn’t recognize it, at first.She orders him cut down from the tree and brought to her before she can change her mind. Boys of that sort are made of hardy stock – he’ll be on his merry way by dinnertime, dazed as if after a lucid dream. And if not, well, there’ll be another ghost down in the woods that night, howling with the wolves among the trees.Old wives' tales lied - the Fairy is not good, and she is not gentle. There is little she cares for beside her own heartbreak.And then, Pinocchio changeseverything.
Relationships: Blue Fairy & Pinocchio
Series: Once upon a time there was (A king) - The Adventures of Pinocchio Remix [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932436
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3





	Gave all my heart the strength of my arms (To hold you close and safe)

She’s disguised as a girl when the boy first comes, and a dead one at that.

It’s easy to be a child – the pain can’t dig as deep, only linger on the surface, its gnarly fingers crashing against the innocence she’s wrapped around herself like armor – and easier still to be ghost, drifting from room to room like a windblown leaf, blind to the world, deaf to its shrieks.

She thinks little of him at first, closing her windows in the face of his calls for help, even though they’re growing more urgent by the second. He’s not the first boy to lose himself to the woods, and he won’t be the last not to make his way out of it come morning. There is a reason why the trail has vanished over the years, roots and moss and anthills where once the cobblestones traced a winding path among the trees - she’s been haunting the house for so long, it’s no wonder some of the magic has escaped, and the forest gobbled it all down gratefully, sated once again after years without rain.

But he’s still there at the break of dawn, buffeted by the morning breeze as he no doubt was by the storm winds during the night, and she feels something coiling around a heart she’d forgotten to have, hidden deeply under the paper-thin skin and bones this shape requires from her. It’s been such a long time since she last tasted pity on her tongue, she almost doesn’t recognize it, at first.

She orders him cut down from the tree and brought to her before she can change her mind. Boys of that sort are made of hardy stock – he’ll be on his merry way by dinnertime, dazed as if after a lucid dream. And if not, well, there’ll be another ghost down in the woods that night, howling with the wolves among the trees.

But Medoro doesn’t think to hide the boy’s face from his mistress, and she doesn’t expect it to be an issue, so there’s nothing to stop her from looking at him. There’s nothing to keep her from staggering, her breath itching in a throat made raw by decades of weeping, when she first sees the puppet in full daylight.

(She buries the child herself.

She digs through the earth barehanded, sharp nails breaking and stones scraping against her skin, until the moon is hanging over her head and the grave is so deep she could lay down herself if she so chose.

She sings the tree to life herself, too, once she’s laid the tiny body down in the ground. She sings and sings, high and terrible and thick with sorrow, and watches as a seedling sprouts from the little mound of earth. She doesn’t stop until it’s grown tall and strong, thick branches laden with leaves and fruits, and pictures the roots worming their way underground, wrapping around the tiny-toed feet and piercing through the small lungs that were too weak to keep breathing.

She stands vigil before it three days and three nights, and then on the fourth daybreak she kisses its trunk goodbye.

She turns her back to it as she goes, and doesn’t look over her shoulder even once.)

The boy’s skin burns fire-hot under her touch, and she fears the worst until she sees him swallow the last drop of medicine.

He’s blessedly oblivious as he lies and laughs and cries in horror, watching his nose grow long and heavy without rest, but she can’t stop drinking in the sight of him. She wants to trace the shape of his chin with her fingers, cup his face in her hands and kiss every inch of wooden skin she can reach. She wants to turn him human there and then, to turn him a babe and nurse him at her breast, to see if it would feel the same.

There are rules, though. She hates them - rules never did her any good, only took what she held most dear – but she’s not so strong as to be able to fight them, not anymore, so she lets him go. She watches him scamper off from her window, waving and hollering as children are wont to, and then leaves the house for the first time in half an age. The sun is harsh on her skin, and her hair catches in the tree branches along the way, buffeted by the wind, but she sheds both as she steps into the river, lets it carry her downstream, translucent and impalpable as a spiderweb.

It is no longer the time to weep. There is work for her to do.

(She rages for so long when she discovers the tree has been cut down, she almost believes she will never stop.

The fields around the meadow she’d planted it in wither and die under the drought, and then the flood drowns them, wiping away all that was left. She can smell the ruin from miles away, and still she won’t stop howling, kneeling on the stump they left behind, scorched and rotting under the elements.

She should have protected it, should have drawn a circle of mushroom and foxglove around it, so that no one dare step close to her beloved. But she’d liked the idea of children climbing among the branches, picking the fruits and peering into birds’ nests. She hadn’t wanted it to be alone, and so it wasn’t, and her soft heart was repaid with grief and pain.

_No more_ , she swears, bare toes digging into the fresh mud, tear tracks drying on her unlined face. _No more._ )

She doesn’t expect to find him begging, when she sees him next.

She doesn’t expect him to follow her, either, too lazy and angry at the world to raise at her offer, but she can’t force him, no matter how much her heart aches. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be proper.

She smiles and pleads and cajoles, though, because _that_ she’s allowed to do, and then he’s so happy at the sight of her that he hardly remembers.

It’s not an easy path to take – she almost loses him again to the cruelty of other boys, and then to the green man of the sea, who really should know better than to take what is hers, when she could steal his bounty in a heartbeat. But the boy clings to her like ivy to a wall, and for a short while she dares to hope.

She doesn’t weep when he first calls her mother. She doesn’t weep, but she goes to kiss his brow as he sleeps that night, to breath in his scent and watch him lean into the touch like a child of flesh and blood.

She could dance with joy, too, when the magic in her relents, whispers in her ear that the time has come for him to be reborn. She doesn’t, but she sings as she does the laundry and hangs it up to dry, humming a tune she knows he’s heard from other women even after he’s gone invite his friends over.

She hasn’t sung in decades, and the notes taste sweet like honeycomb on her tongue. She’s still singing when she realizes he’s left, never to return, and the words fall out of her mouth midway through, souring like curdled milk.

(She doesn’t know what became of the tree.

She doesn’t dare wonder how much of it was given to fire, if it wept as the flames engulfed it whole. There’s no one for her to ask if there’s a hut whose walls are made of polished planks, listening intently as the children inside play make-believe.

She doesn’t know about the log that fell into Master Cherry’s hands until she’s lulling Pinocchio to sleep after a nightmare, until he’s sobbing into her arms about the men – too many already, and he so young, and he so powerless – who tried to hurt him before he had a chance to fight back and still crawl into his dreams.

She wants them to pay. She wants to lure them into the marshlands, watch them sink like pebbles underwater, gurgling and gasping for air. Mostly, she wants to see if the blood still runs strong in him – if, given the chance, he would learn from her the way she did from her mother, the hunger and bloodlust glinting in his eyes, not so defenseless anymore.

But that will have to come later. She tucks him back into bed, and sits by his side until dawn, challenging the spirits of the night to come take him.)

The Coachman dies screaming.

As a rule, she doesn’t like fire. The heat prickles and pokes at her skin, and on any other day she would long for rain, would will the sky overhead to open and bring down some relief.

It can’t be helped, though. Water requires time, and she has no patience for it today. She sets his Land ablaze, with him locked inside, and watches the flames grow high, turning the sky a sickly orange. She only realizes he’s not alone when she hears the wails, and opens the doors to dozens of his victims, all pushing and scratching to be the first to break free of that hell.

Children and donkeys bray alike, and she counts their heads as they stream out, coughing and weeping against the smoke in their eyes. Many, too many for it to go unpunished, but the boy is not there. It doesn’t come as a surprise – it’s been too long since she last tracked someone down, she’s grown too rusty in her grief – but still her heart sinks low in her belly, in the dark pit where she once cultivated a new life.

She charms her way to a box in the circus, her poise perfect and her hands clasped in her lap. She grits her teeth through the first half of the show, but she has to bite her tongue when they lead the donkey out, parading him around like a monkey in a king’s court. She bites on it so hard it would bleed, were she human.

Her boy. Her poor, darling boy, dressed up in silks and ribbons for the amusement of those fools. How dare they- how dare the ringleader whip him on the nose, as if her child were his to chastise. Some might say he deserves it, but surely she does not deserve more suffering. Surely, the price has long since been paid.

She leaves before the show is over, to slip hemlock in the ringleader’s wine, and then walks out with her hands fisted in her skirts, head held high even though she wants to tear her hair out in rage.

Rules- what are rules, when she has to see someone she loves so much in pain, when all that’s left to her is ashes and tears? Duty binds her to the earth, to growing and tearing down and fishing barehanded in shallow waters, but if she could she’d raze the circus to the ground and salt the earth afterwards, so nothing could ever grow there again. She would dance on their bones until her feet were worn down, and then she would lay among them and let herself be swallowed whole, her skin peeled off by the pouring rain.

She doesn’t see Pinocchio’s legs break, or his owner sell him for nothing, to have him turned into a drum. She doesn’t see the stone be tied to his neck, drag him down towards the bottom of the sea.

But her instincts are better honed now, and so she hikes on the cliff before she knows why she’s doing so. She’s a bird and a vine and a snake, before she settles in the shape of a goat – no one will dare steal a mangy goat at pasture, too skinny to even serve as a meal.

She’s there to see him splutter to the surface, swimming towards her with screeches of joy, and she’s there when the joy turns into fear as the sea monster dines on him, like a fish, like a worthless mite. She howls and curses and prays, but the sea doesn’t answer to her bidding, no matter how hard she tries. Her powers amount to nothing when there’s something greater pushing against them. Her hands are tied.

She bleats until her screams sound human, until the budding storm overhead pales in comparison.

(She’s cursed to remember, she thinks.

Others might have forgotten already, were they standing in her shoes. They live so long, nobody would blame her for scraping the memories off her mind, shrugging them off her shoulders like a coat that no longer fits.

But she cannot. Her heart’s a gaping wound, bleeding and aching as though it were fresh, and every turn brings up a new memory, paints it painfully fresh colors. The man dangling from the rope, the face she’d once loved gone slack and pale, flies landing on his glazed eyes. Pinocchio swinging from the tree branch, his shadow dark against the morning light. Her babe still and unmoving, skin ice-cold against her chest. A puppet burning with fever, swearing he’ll die before he lets her treat him.

He's not dead - in fact, he’s never been more alive. He’s earned his humanity fair and square, and now he’s living it in full, flitting around like a hummingbird. His cheeks burn red under the sun and turn dimpled when he smiles, and if he’s a tad more fragile now, if he bleeds when he’s cut, then it is a small price to pay for his happiness. He’s tall for his age, strong and resilient, and his dark curls are in dire need of a cut, falling in his eyes and framing his face just so. Why, the resemblance is uncanny, it almost reminds her of…

It is of no matter. He is far away from her, content in his father’s house. She visits him every now and then, no more than it is appropriate, and spends the rest of her days with a hollow space in her arms where he should be.

She can bide her time, though. If there’s any of the magic she sung into the tree in him – and there must be, even just a drop, he’s too prompt to get up when he falls, his hands too quick as he works – then he will outlive his father and every soul in his town. And even if he doesn’t, well, Geppetto is an old man. She’ll have plenty of time alone with him, to mold him into what he was meant to be.

She picks her way through the underground court, when she has gone too long without seeing him. It hasn’t been a welcoming place for her in more than a century, but still she knows it like the palm of her hand. There is water pooling here and there, glinting mesmerizingly in the darkness, and the light catches in her hair, turns it a queer shade of green. It matches the moss she sees growing on the walls, and the lily pads floating lazily on the surface, too, hiding what lurks underneath.

She stands in the cavernous halls and pictures herself on a throne, a step higher than the figures now brushing past her, blind to their sharp-toothed smiles and deaf to their snickers. She can feel the crown on her head already, oak and cattail leaves, a welcome weight digging in her scalp and into her tangled hair, frizzled in the damp air.

She sees him as if he were there in earnest, with his dimpled smile and his blue eyes shining bright, standing at her right hand like a loyal squire. He’s always grown, in her mind’s eye, not a child but not yet a man, his arms strong and his wit sharp as a well-honed knife.

It is a dream, and a wistful one at that – he’d never stay still for so long, not even for her. ‘Tis a pity – patience is the water’s way, the way the lone droplet carves the mountain, slow and steady - but it’s nothing that can’t be solved. Patience is something he can learn, and he will, in time, if she has any say in it.

She has need of him, after all. The laws and rules of her kind have taken everything for her, and she cannot hope to break them, no more than she can forget the insult. She can make her own, though, if she rises high enough, and she has every intention to do so, even if it means conjuring every bit of strength the world has to offer, draining streams and recalling stormclouds.

And who better to help her- who better to follow in her footsteps, if not her son?)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Yes, it's me again, the Pinocchio-obsessed disaster.  
> So, for the poor souls who have been on the receiving end of many of my rants, this fic might come as a surprise, as I am very vocal in my dislike of the Fairy as a character. She reeks of bullshit throughout the whole story, and every adaptation just bothers me more, instead of ingratiating her to me.  
> But I was struck by inspiration one day ~~while I was supposed to be studying~~ ~~which I still am I have an exam in a week pray for me~~ , and I wanted to see if there was any way for me to find her more interesting and easier to relate to. As it appears, the answer was "by making her scary as fuck and turning this into a darker story than it already fucking was".  
> There are countless references to general fairy lore throughout the fic, mostly tiny easter eggs that I had lots of fun peppering in, but the bulk of it is directly related to Italian folklore because a)I am Italian b)the novel is Italian c)our legends are cool as shit. Specifically, my main inspiration was the _anguana_ , a figure from Center-North Italian stories who has a strong connection to water, might be either an inhuman spirit or a girl dying very young or while giving birth, and who is said in some places to do the laundry for unsuspecting people :^) I know I probably fucked some shit up, but this is my best shot considering I have to take an exam on Italian anthropology in like twenty days and I have yet to prepare for it properly.  
> Oh well. My professor will be delighted when I spread all my knowledge on obscure pieces of media all over her desk.  
> (Also, I discovered to my dismay that there was no actual tag for Italian folklore, but there WERE dozens of very specific tags about mafia and/or Italian-American headcanons. Really, Ao3? Is that the best that you've got?)  
> Thank you for reading! I hope that you enjoyed the read, however you managed to find this story. Stay safe.


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